École Leila North Community Report

YEAR IN REVIEW

Our Community Report this year will focus on the highlights, initiatives

and activities that impact our school community in so many positive

ways.

I would like to thank those of you who participated in our

“ThoughtStream” survey. It has led us to focus on improving our com-

munication with our families as most, if not all, of the thoughts for im-

provement at École Leila are already in place currently. The survey al-

lowed us to reflect on why our parents are not aware that their son or

daughter are actively participating in various activities/programs

throughout the year.

As you read through our highlights , I know some of you are going to

ask, “what about the academics”? We can say we are very proud of how

well our students do in all areas of the provincial curriculum. We have

also tracked our students’ grades after they enter High School and can

say with confidence they continue to do very well, maintaining the

grades they achieved at École Leila North.

I hope this report will allow you to see all of the great things that our

students have done this year!

SPECIAL POINTS OF INTEREST

Excelling at Leila

Philanthropy

Experiential Learning

Student Support

Technology

Sustainability

Aboriginal education

Every student that attends École Leila North has an opportunity to be involved in inter-scholastic athletics with our divisional no-cut policy

Our students participate in a yearly survey called "Tell Them From Me”.

This survey collates data and reports back to our school. The survey looks

at social-emotional outcomes, academic outcomes and student engage-

ment. We have shared the results with students and it has impacted how

we treat our community.

Our counselling team worked at addressing student needs, making stress

balls with classes, and having students post positive messages on lockers

for students to read at break. Making students aware of Mental Health

Week and celebrating each day as a school wide event was another initia-

tive counsellors took on.

One of our priorities has always been, and will continue to be having stu-

dent voices heard. As in past years students take on their own initiatives,

such as removing water bottles and drink machines from the school. We

celebrate these events and make sure our student body knows we are lis-

tening to them. We use the language “ You said this, we did this”.

Our student “True Colors Video” was initiated by our student ambassa-

dors celebrating our schools acceptance and tolerance of everyone.

We are always looking at reducing any stress that students may feel about

going to school. We know leaving a school where you are comfortable to go

to another can be a very stressful experience so we put a lot of effort in to

transitioning our student in grade 5 to 6 and our students in grade 8 to 9.

Each of these transitions has involved students spending time at the new

schools while experiencing “A Day in the Life” school was in progress.

EXCELLING AT LEILA

ADDRESSING STUDENT NEEDS

Divisional boys Volleyball reach the semi-finals

Divisional boys Basketball provincial runners up

Divisional boys coach Pam Godfredsen honoured as Junior High

Coach of the Year

Leila North’s Track and Field capture 2nd place in Athletics Man-

itoba

Mrs. Schioler, Mr. Huynh, Mrs. Hanson and Mrs. Biggar have 8

students published and winners of the Short Story Creative Writing

contest

OUR SUPPORT TEAM

Currently at Ecole Leila North we

have 3 English Learning Support

Teachers and a half time French

Immersion Learning Support. Along

with our two Guidance Counsellors

we have a school Social Worker that

provides support for our students

and families .We also have a school

Psychologist that evaluates educa-

tional needs. Our Psychologist and

Social worker are with us 2 days a

week. Our Speech and Language

professional is here 1 day a week.

We believe in being pro-active in

middle school. We want our stu-

dents to feel confident to be able to

speak to any adult in the building for

support. We have our support team

in classrooms so students feel very

comfortable approaching them for

help. As we say that we also believe

in building resiliency in our students

and help support them in finding

ways to work through their prob-

lems rather than solving them our-

selves.

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EXPERIENTAL LEARNING

Our students and staff held a Christmas Challenge Hockey game,

the premise was to have fun but also expose our students to a live

hockey game as many had not seen one before.

Our grade 8 students participate in dissections in their science cur-

riculum but we also take these classes to the St. Boniface Research

Center to do hands on work in the youth lab.

The school division supports our cooperative program with the

Winnipeg Art Gallery in which an Artist in Residence works with

classes and the teachers at the Art Gallery. Students are bused to

the Art Gallery once a cycle in the a.m. for 10 weeks, we had 6 clas-

ses participate in this program this year.

We had 4 classes go on camping excursions this year. A grade

7 group over nighted at Birds Hill Park and the grade 8’s

spent 3 days at Hecla both setting up camp and cooking food

in the wilderness. For most students this was their first

camping experience .

We took 36 students on our annual Quebec trip this year,

again connecting their immersion language to French culture

beyond our walls.

GIVING BACK TO

OUR COMMUNITY:

FIRE-HALL GAR-

DEN

Our Fire Hall garden

was created in coop-

eration with our

neighbors at the fire

hall. We use this gar-

den as an extension

of curriculum in our

vocational arts pro-

grams; (specifically,

our foods and nutri-

tion program and our

consumer program).

The students prepare

the garden, plant the

vegetables , and weed

it throughout the

year. This past year

we harvested the pro-

duce for use in our

own kitchens but also

donated over 90

pounds to Winnipeg

Harvest.

Grade eights camping at Hecla

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**Although one of our focuses is on technology

our library, classrooms and student book club still

spent TEN times the amount on books

CONTINUING TO BE SUSTAINABLE

Every classroom is equipped with a mounted projector and 3-4

desktop computers.

Every teacher has been supplied an I-Pad to work with their class

We have 2 class sets of I-Pod touches for students to access, along

with many recording devices and green screen technology.

8 Mimeos are located in the school (mobile smart boards).

Wireless access points are located throughout the school so stu-

dents can also use their handheld technology when given permission or

on their own time.

Our T.V. in the front of the school shows previous events such as

choir concerts, games and announcements all run by student volun-

We added 2 more water bottle filling station fountains and continue to sell

water bottles for $2 to support sustainability

We continue to supply each classroom with compostable bins to reduce

our waste and add to the divisional biovator which produces fertilizer for our

gardens

Mr. Roy’s class continues to pick up paper products to recycle throughout

the school once a cycle, this material is then picked up by Emterra and recycled.

We added aluminum and plastic recyclable bins throughout school yard

to continue to reduce our waste.

ABORIGINAL EDUCATION AT LEILA

TECHNOLOGY AT ÉCOLE LEILA NORTH

One of our divisional priorities is making sure we are enriching our students lives and

celebrating the aboriginal culture.

Each year we support Urban Circle by hosting Educational Assistant candidates'.

This year our candidates taught our classes the history and celebrated by organizing

a school wide Powwow. Also leading a number of smudges at our outdoor sharing

circle.

We had a group of students attending the annual “Keeping Balance Conference” and

participating in aboriginal storytelling at the Forks

Kevin Lamoureux , University of Winnipeg Professor, presented to our staff at a

professional development day on why aboriginal education is important in every

school. He also presented to all of our grade six students.

We hosted an Aboriginal Theatre group working in-house with a grade six class lead-

ing up to a performance at the end at MYPT. 4

With all of our community’s generosity, we generated 500lbs of non-perishable food and over $6000 that has gone to the various charities

At École Leila North we feel it is important for our students to be thankful for what we

have here but also to gain a sense of what else is going on in the world around them. In

saying this we also do not want our expectations on helping others to become a burden on

our own community so we try and spread out our philanthropy throughout the year and

look at initiatives that don’t always require money in return.

“Change for Brains” was a divisional initiative along with Mondetta to help a school

in Kamwokya, Uganda.

Mr. Johnsons’ class raised over $800.00 selling hot chocolate and cookies for the

Typhoon victims.

We had a quick turn around fundraiser for the Typhoon Haiyan survivors that in-

clude profits from our pizza sales

Mrs. Yevtushenko's class held their annual “Buy a Brick “campaign to continue

building a school in Dadaab Refugee Camp

We have hosted a number of Family Fitness nights to promote

healthy activity through those cold winter months

At any time during the day or evening you can see community

members sitting on logs in the beginnings of our outdoor class-

room.

Our counselling team hoisted a tea/coffee drop in information

session for parents at student leds

Our School newsletters are produced by our journalism club ran

by Mrs. Wiebe, these newsletter continue expand with more and

more information on what is happening at the school

We have tried to also provide evenings throughout the year for

parents to come in and engage in dialogue around certain topics

that they might need more information about

We have many student that are at school before the start of the

day, we hope that as soon as students enter the school they are

ready to be engaged in some type of activity. Thus we have

opened our library, fitness room, dance studio, multi purpose

room and many classrooms for student to find an activity to be

involved in.

PHILANTHROPY

ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY

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BY THE NUMBERS

191 Students enrolled

in band

105 Students in-

volved in running our

production

We had the following

students involved in

school athletics this

year:

20 students in X-Country

150 in Volleyball

80 in Indoor Track

150 in Basketball

100 in Track and filed

150 in Badminton

175 in Softball

12 in Marathon club, reg-

istered at no cost to stu-

dents

50 in cricket

30 in rugby

60 Involved in our am-

bassador program

7 of our students

started our GSA

LEARNING OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM

Our outdoor space continues to improve with students tak-

ing ownership for all of trees that have been newly planted

(through our Hydro Grant)

Our partnership with the Fire Hall continues, with students

planting and harvesting the garden . We donated to Winni-

peg Harvest this year and used numerous fresh goods in our

Foods program.

Continued expansion of curriculum by visiting places like the

HSC Science Lab, Aviation Center, MB Museum, Art Gallery,

Winnipeg Library, The Forks, St. Boniface Museum, Louis

Riel House, Kildonan Park, Deer Meadow Farms, Assiniboine

Park, Birds Hill Park, Lower Fort Garry, MB Sports Hall of

Fame, MTs Center, MTYP, Harbour View, Franco MB, Oak

Hammock Marsh, Red River College which resulted in our

students having hands on activities 55 times this year and

because of Seven Oaks School Division support at no extra

cost to our families.

All of our grade six classes attended a Goldeyes game out of

the 180 students 112 had never been to a Goldeyes game be-

fore.

We had 22 students involved in Career Trek, visiting Univer-

sity of Winnipeg, Manitoba and Red River college exploring

different careers.

Another exceptional year of talent showcased at our talent

show, this year we had acts perform.